Chapter 671 Treat with caution

Li Qing did not comment on the inappropriate remarks made by his teammates at this time. No matter who asked, he only said four words: no comment.

Li Qing never interfered with the problems between players and clubs. It was a waste of energy and time. It would be better to understand the situation of the opponent and focus more on daily training.

At the end of the 23rd round of the Premier League, Liverpool continued to win all the games and accumulated 66 points with one less game, holding the top of the standings.

After Manchester City defeated Huddersfield 3:0 in this round, they continued to chase Liverpool, who was at the top of the list. However, with a double-digit point difference and a double defeat in the league, anyone could see that the championship race this season was over.

But Guardiola's team did not give up. Earlier in January, after the game with Liverpool, Guardiola ordered the team's players to stop tinkering with their hairstyles and stop doing anything unrelated to the game at the post-match summary meeting.

Therefore, most of Manchester City's players no longer use their mobile phones in places where football activities are carried out, such as training centers, but directly hand in their mobile phones and take them back after the activities or training.

Guardiola also praised Liverpool's current performance. He acted generous in front of the media, saying that Liverpool is the most eye-catching team in the Premier League and is leading the standings.

But he also said that Liverpool's biggest rival for the championship is still Manchester City. Although this is a huge challenge, he still believes that his team can win the Premier League title in the end.

But Manchester City now has a lot of troubles. In the second round of the semi-finals with Burton, because Manchester City U21 will play in the Trade Cup, Manchester City hopes that the English Football League will adjust the schedule, but it was rejected.

Because the young players of the youth team will play in the Trade Cup, Guardiola has to take many main players to play the second round of the semi-finals away from home, and this game can be said to be a formality, which completely disrupted his plan to give the main players a rest.

In another key battle that affects the situation of the top four in this round, Arsenal's home game against Chelsea, with Lacazette and Koscielny's goals, Arsenal ended Chelsea's recent three-game winning streak away.

Tottenham challenged Fulham away in this round of the league and finally defeated the opponent 2:1, but the team's offensive player Ali was injured in the game, and there was news after the game that Tottenham's Eriksson had decided not to renew his contract with the team.

After this round, Manchester City has 52 points, 14 points behind Liverpool, Tottenham has 51 points, Chelsea has 46 points, and is less than one game away from Arsenal and Manchester United behind them.

Therefore, the competition for the fourth place in the Premier League is fierce, the second and third are temporarily safe, and Manchester City only has the possibility of winning the championship in theory, but many people are still willing to believe that football is round.

And it was under this situation that Liverpool went to the away game to challenge their first FA Cup opponent Newport County.

Newport County is now participating in the English Football League's fourth-level English League Second Division. Given the strength and level of the opponent, and the team will face the coming Leicester City at home in the next round.

Therefore, for this round of the FA Cup, Liverpool Club did not take it seriously, and even Klopp was not prepared to go to the away game to direct the game.

Klopp has always been quite critical of the schedule of English matches. He is not Guardiola, who likes to do things to please the FA and the English Football League.

So Klopp simply sent out the youth team for this game, and even temporarily selected players from the Kirkby Youth Academy to participate in the FA Cup, and the team was led by assistant coach Buvac.

However, even with such indifference, the Liverpool team composed of young players still defeated their opponents with a score of 1-0 away from home and entered the next round of the FA Cup.

But knowing that the opponent in the next round is Shrewsbury in the third-level English League One, Klopp has decided to continue to let the youth team fight in the next round, and use the freed time to recover the team's injuries.

However, even if Klopp tried his best to give the main and substitute players time to rest, the intensity of the next game still bothered him.

Three days after the home game against Leicester City, it is the second round of the League Cup semi-finals against Tottenham. In February, Liverpool will embark on two more away trips, playing against West Ham United and Wolves respectively.

The match against Wolves is a make-up match, and after returning to the home game against Bournemouth, Liverpool will go to Germany to start the first round of the Champions League with Schalke 04.

Immediately afterwards, they will face Manchester United and Manchester City in the away game of the league and the League Cup final respectively, so it is not an exaggeration to describe Liverpool's next schedule as a heavy task, because it does not include the possible FA Cup.

Because once the FA Cup enters the fifth round, Liverpool Club cannot ignore the next game, because from the fifth round, the game will definitely be played at Liverpool's home stadium, and Liverpool will not be able to send young players to play at that time.

But now is not the time to consider these things. After all, you have to eat one bite at a time and play one game at a time. Fortunately, after the game with Crystal Palace, after a round of negative news, Liverpool finally ushered in some good news.

Defender Lovren is finally able to play, which gives Klopp more options in the personnel arrangement of the back line.

However, Klopp did not take it lightly. He knew very well that when Leicester City played against strong teams, it was completely different from when they played against weak teams.

Although Leicester City no longer continued to be magical after winning the league championship, the defensive lineup left by the former head coach Ranieri was still there.

In the game against Leicester City last year, Liverpool relied on Li Qing's hat trick and assists to get all three points away from home. In that game, Leicester also became the first team this season to let Liverpool lose the ball in the league.

So for this game, Klopp still seemed very cautious in arranging the troops. Milner was suspended for a red card in the back line, so he arranged the captain Henderson to play as the team's right back.

In the midfield, Wijnaldum, Keita and Li Qing were in charge, and the forwards were Shaqiri, Firmino and Mane to form a trident.

In Klopp's opinion, Leicester is a more threatening opponent than Crystal Palace, especially now that their lineup is very complete and they are not as full of injuries as Liverpool. For the sake of safety, Klopp moved Li Qing's position back to midfield.